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Accelerated multimedia file download and playbackAccelerated multimedia file download and playback description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20080133771, Accelerated multimedia file download and playback. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/867,834, filed Nov. 30, 2006, and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates to computer networks in general, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for downloading and playing multimedia files. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONTransfer protocols for downloading files from serving computers (servers) to client computers (clients) via computer networks such as the Internet are well known in the art. Two commonly used transfer protocols include the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Generally speaking, in order to download a file, a client establishes a single data transfer link with a server during a file transfer session through which the contents of the file is transmitted from the server to the client. Various file transfer protocols include the ability to begin downloading a file from a point other than the start of the file simply by instructing the server to begin transmitting the file from a specified byte offset. This has led to the development of file transfer software that is able to resume a download where the data transfer link has been broken in the middle of a download. The download is simply continued from the point at which the download stopped. This ability to download a file in sections has led to the development of file transfer protocols in which multiple data transfer links are established with one or more servers where different portions of a single file, or duplicates of the file, are downloaded via the different data transfer links and reassembled at the client. This generally results in a file being downloaded to a client faster due to the greater cumulative throughput of multiple data transfer links with one or more servers as compared with that of a single data transfer link with one server. Unfortunately, in their current configuration, such protocols are not suited for downloading multimedia files that are to be played as they are being downloaded, rather than only after they are downloaded in their entirety and reassembled. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention in embodiments thereof discloses methods and apparatus for downloading and playing multimedia files. In one aspect of the present invention a multimedia file transfer system is provided including a redirector configured to identify a request to access a multimedia file via a network at a specified network address, and an accelerator configured to respond to the request by identifying at least one physical data storage device on which at least a portion of the multimedia file is stored, establish a plurality of data transfer links via the network with any of the devices, download a different portion of the multimedia file via each of the data transfer links, where any of the portions are downloaded at least partly concurrently, and provide, at least partly concurrently with downloading any of the portions, downloaded multimedia file data to a multimedia file player in the order in which the data appear in the multimedia file. In another aspect of the present invention the accelerator is configured to indicate to any of the devices, to which the accelerator has established any of the data transfer links, a byte offset demarcating the beginning of a portion of the multimedia file to be downloaded, and the number of bytes in the portion to be downloaded. In another aspect of the present invention the accelerator is configured to provide the downloaded multimedia file data to the multimedia file player after buffering a predefined amount of the data. In another aspect of the present invention either of the redirector and the accelerator are implemented in either of computer hardware and computer software, and are embodied in a computer-readable medium. In another aspect of the present invention either of the redirector and the accelerator are executed by either of a modem and a router. In another aspect of the present invention the multimedia file player is assembled with either of the redirector and the accelerator. In another aspect of the present invention the accelerator is configured to determine the size of a next portion of the multimedia file to be downloaded as the product of a download rate of the multimedia file and the amount of time remaining until all portions of the multimedia file preceding the next portion will have been played at a current play rate. In another aspect of the present invention the download rate is any of the fastest download rate achieved at any time during the download of any portion of the multimedia file, the slowest download rate achieved at any time during the download of any portion of the multimedia file, the average download rate of all downloaded portions of the multimedia file, and the download rate of the most recently downloaded portion of the multimedia file. In another aspect of the present invention the accelerator is configured to determine the size of a next portion of the multimedia file to be downloaded as
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